Now, with curtain’s rise, come the first real startlements. The short instrumental intro to Leporello’s opening solo is for me not aggressive enough, with insufficient contrast between piano and forte. But then, the large, rotund basso and large, rotund personality of Salvatore Baccaloni, the pre-eminent basso buffo of the 1930s and ’40s, for whom there is not a proper comparison to be made among contemporary performers, snaps us to. As admirable as Priante is for Currentzis, Baccaloni’s chops are far meatier, and we are immediately aware that we’re in for a ride whose main source of electricity comes from the stage, from the characters of the drama. ^(I) Then, ninety seconds or so in, we hear the compact, centered soprano of Ina Souez, with its quick vibrato, and the clear, thrusting high baritone of John Brownlee, and things are crackling.

Those three, and the leadership of Busch, are, apart from purely historical interest, the strongest attractions of the performance. Brownlee—ten years earlier the Act 3 Bohème Marcello of Melba’s farewell gala—is another artist with whom Met devotees of my age grew restive for his long string of choppy, leathery-sounding performances as “house baritone” in the 1940s. And throaty premonitions of those days are audible here, too, especially in recitative. But much of the performance is really fine, the line better sustained and the softer shadings frequently more eloquent than I’d recalled. While his lean, lucid timbre is not  Italianate, his handling of the language is adept (really fluent exchanges with Baccaloni), and when he interpolates the top A on his final “No!” in the last scene, it’s right in the center of the pitch with a tenorial ring.

Souez’s atypical career, with its scattering of well-received engagements in Italy and England and its wartime coda back in the U.S. as radio soloist for Spike Jones and His City Slickers, reached its peak with her seasons as Glyndebourne’s Anna and Fiordiligi. ^(II) I always loved her Anna, and still do. I now hear more distinctly the caution with which she finds her way through both sections of “Non mi dir,” but listen to the way her voice peals forth on her entrance with Ottavio in the Act 2 sextette (one of my favorite spots in the score, beautifully underpinned by Busch and his orchestra). Or, for both highly pleasurable listening and an approach you won’t hear anywhere else, try the “Or sai chi l’onore,” gradual, with sanft attacks, top A’s that are developed from a suggestion of messa di voce to a full, shining forte, and lovely portamenti on downward intervals, so that the impression is more of an urgent, womanly plea than an imperious command.